Novel foods - overview, legislation and methods of analysis

Novel foods have recently gained increasing popularity. Given their diversity and nutritional values, which are comparable to commonly consumed foods, novel foods had to be regulated both in terms of the procedural stages required for market introduction at the European Union level, implicitly in Romania, and the requirements they must meet for safe consumption. The analysis methods used for their characterization are generally classic, standardized ones or can be developed "in-house", as is the case for methods developed for the determination of mycotoxins. The method of analysis used for the determination of mycotoxins involves high performance liquid chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometer (LCMSMS) after the prior extraction of mycotoxins using QuEChERS extraction. The novelty of recent years is the inclusion on the list of novel foods approved at the European Union level of laboratory-grown meat and insects, such as flour beetle larvae available in frozen, paste, or dried form, and house crickets, available in frozen, powdered or desiccated form.